As you may have noticed over the last couple of days, the Android Market hasn't been doing too well. Downloads have started, and then failed, failed to start, started to fail, and just generally failed in every imaginable way. There once was a time when clearing such-and-such cache would fix this sporadic issue, but it seems that even this black magic no longer suffices. Threads have been popping up all over the Android-tinted corners of the 'net with people unable to download anything from the Market.

This happens to coincide nicely with a Google Maps 4.6 update, which is said to bring some new and improved search features. A post on reddit speculates that Google may have inadvertently DDoS'd itself through Android 2.2's auto-update feature, with millions of users attempting to download the new Maps all at once. While you'd think a web giant like Google would have the wherewithal to keep a nicely load-balanced server farm running smoothly, that doesn't seem to be the case with whatever's hosting Market downloads.

According to a support thread on the official Android Market forum, Google is aware of the issue and is investigating the cause:

Hopefully this will all be sorted out shortly, but right now it's not giving the Android Market the best reputation.